Abstract

One must consider the end of every affair, how it will
turn out.”1 Solon’s advice to Croesus has often been applied to Herodotus’ Histories themselves: Is the conclusion
of Herodotus’ work a fitting and satisfying one? Older
interpretations tended to criticize the final stories about Artayctes
and Artembares as anticlimactic or inappropriate: Did
Herodotus forget himself here, or were the stories intended as
interludes, preludes to further narrative?2 Entirely opposite is
the praise accorded Herodotus in a recent commentary on Book
9: “The brilliance of Herodotus as a writer and thinker is manifest
here, as the conclusion of the Histories both brings together
those themes which have permeated the entire work and, at the
same time, alludes to the new themes of the post-war world.”3
More recent appreciation for Herodotus’ “brilliance,” then, is
often inspired by the tightly-woven texture of Herodotus’
narrative. Touching upon passion, revenge, noble primitivism, East-West relations, the concluding stories at 9.108–122 recall
the Prologue and Lydian logos, reinforce many of the narrative
motifs that thread through the work as a whole, and (perhaps)
offer a warning to the Athenians that with the emergence of the
Delian League, a new cycle of tragic history may be beginning.4